Commonwealth Parliament from 1901 to World War I

The Commonwealth Parliament of Australia was just 13 years old
when World War I broke out on 28 July 1914.

Prior to Federation in 1901, each Australian colony had been
responsible for its own defence arrangements. At Federation, section 51(vi) of
the Australian Constitution gave the new Commonwealth Parliament the power to
make laws with respect to ‘the naval and military defence of the Commonwealth
and of the several States’. The Governor-General became Australia’s Commander-in-Chief
and the states transferred their naval and military forces to the Commonwealth
of Australia under the control of the Department of Defence.

The Parliament passed Australia’s first Defence Act in
1903, empowering the Commonwealth Government to call up ‘unexempted’ males in
times of war for home defence, but not for overseas service. When Parliament
passed the Defence Act 1909, it paved the way for Australia’s first
universal training scheme, which came into operation in 1911, requiring
Australian males aged between 18 and 60 years to perform militia service within
Australia and its territories.

The development of Australia’s defence policy was conditioned by
the new nation’s reliance on Britain, the substantial cost in establishing and
maintaining a navy, and Britain’s desire that the colonies should provide
financial support for its own navy rather than establishing separate
regionally-based fleets which could weaken central control in emergencies. By
1914, Australia had established the Royal Australian Navy and developed an
independent system of military training from which could be drawn a citizen
army of mainly conscripted soldiers.

Whilst the Parliament was not involved in Australia’s decision to
go to war, it took an active role in shaping the new nation’s public safety and
defence laws. In addition to war-related legislation, the Parliament also
passed significant measures that were to have an enduring impact on Australia,
including laws relating to income tax and the electoral system.

Between Federation and the end of World War I, 270 men had served
in the Commonwealth Parliament. Of these, 23 saw active service in World War I,
nine of whom were members of parliament at the time of their military service.

The authors
would like to thank Professor Joan Beaumont, Dr Dianne Heriot, Jonathan Curtis,
Marilyn Harrington, Cathy Madden, Dr Damon Muller, Dr Nathan Church and
Maryanne Lawless for their invaluable contributions to the production of this
paper.

The year 1900 saw the infant Commonwealth in
swaddling clothes oppressed by the politics of the parish pump—a veritable
economic Tower of Babel—dependent for defence upon the motherland, and content
neither to do for itself nor adequately to subsidise Great Britain to protect
it. The year 1911 finds us living in another world in all or most of these
matters. The Commonwealth is now a sturdy youth.[1]

The Commonwealth Parliament, sitting in Melbourne in the
Victorian Parliament House, had been in operation for just 13 years when World
War I broke out on 28 July 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand of Austria a month earlier. There had only been five Parliaments
since the first commenced on 9 May 1901. The fifth had been prorogued
on 27 June 1914 with an election not scheduled until September 1914.

In the period since Federation, Australia’s population had
grown from an estimated 3.80 million to 4.95 million, of which 2.58 million
were males.[2] Half of the
population lived in cities, three-quarters were born in Australia, and the
majority were of English, Scottish or Irish descent. From 1900 to 1914, great
progress had been made in developing Australia’s agricultural and manufacturing
capacities and in setting up institutions for government and social services
such as the public service, defence services and a judiciary.

This research paper provides an overview of Australia as a
newly emerging ‘nation-state’ and the evolution of the federal Parliament by
tracing the seven elections held from 1901 to 1918. The focus is on leadership
positions, the state of the parties and key issues facing the government and
opposition, particularly as it relates to the First World War (WWI). The paper
also provides a profile of the Parliament during this period, drawing out facts
relating to members of Parliament (MPs) from 1914 to 18, and provides further
detail of MPs who served during the war.

Historian FK Crowley asserts that Australia was a new ‘state’
in 1901 but it was not a ‘nation-state’ because Australians had had no
experience of a single national government. The state governments still
controlled much of what affected their everyday lives (for example, land,
roads, railways and education). Loyalty was to their state, not federal,
government. Parochialism predominated, aided by the concentration of the
population in New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria and in the cities. People
would refer to themselves as Australians in relation to Britain (for example,
as Anglo-Australian or as Scottish-Australian and Britain was often referred to
as ‘home’). British history was taught in schools. Professional standards in
education, engineering, medicine and law were determined according to British
standards.[3]

Australia lacked its own symbols of nationhood. There was no
national anthem, no national flag (until late in 1901), and no Australian
honours or medals. The British national anthem was played at public gatherings,
the loyal toast given, honours were conferred by Britain (the Victoria Cross
was the highest war decoration), the King of England was Australia’s head of
state and the final court of appeal was the Privy Council in London. State
governors and the Governor-General were British. As a self-governing colony in
the British Empire, Australia had no national army or navy and its foreign
policy was determined by Britain.[4]

Loyalty to Britain was not just an emotion but was backed
up in practice when volunteers joined Australian contingents as part of the
imperial armed services fighting in the Zulu War in South Africa, in the Sudan,
in the Boer War in South Africa, and in the Boxer Rebellion in China. The first
battalion of the Australian Commonwealth Horse, a mounted infantry unit, sailed
for South Africa on 19 February 1902. In all, Australia sent eight battalions
but only four arrived in time to take part.[5] Nineteen
men who served in the colonial wars had careers as Commonwealth MPs.[6] Australia’s support was not just patriotic but also of strategic importance in
ensuring that Britain could keep open its trade routes via the Suez Canal and
South Africa. As a result of this support, Australia’s ties with the British
Empire were strengthened.[7]

Defence policy was conditioned by Australia’s reliance on
Britain in such matters, the substantial cost in establishing and maintaining a
navy, and Britain’s desire that the colonies provide financial support for its
own navy rather than establishing separate regionally-based fleets which could
weaken central control in emergencies.[8] Australia did not expect to be involved in the wars of the Old World, and
although it was expected Australians would volunteer to defend Britain, it was
thought this was unlikely to be required because Britain ‘ruled the waves’.
Military conscription during peace time was not supported.[9]

Prior to Federation, each colony had been responsible for
its own defence arrangements. Section 51(vi) of the Constitution gave the new
Commonwealth Parliament the power to make laws with respect to the naval and
military defence of the Commonwealth. On Federation, the Governor-General
became Commander-in-Chief, although it was not until 1 March 1901 that the
states transferred their naval and military forces to the Commonwealth of Australia
and the following year were formally named the Commonwealth Naval Forces and
Commonwealth Military Forces.[10]

The first Commonwealth Parliament was opened by His Royal
Highness the Duke of Cornwall and York on 9 May 1901. On 10 May 1901, the Governor-General,
Lord Hopetoun, addressed a gathering of senators and members of the first
Commonwealth Parliament in the Legislative Chamber of Parliament House,
Melbourne. He outlined the matters that would receive the attention of the
First Parliament, including provision for its defence:

As
soon as practicable after the necessary Act has been passed, means will be
taken for the judicious strengthening of the Defence of the Commonwealth.
Extravagant expenditure will be avoided, and reliance will be placed, to the
fullest reasonable extent, in our citizen soldiery. It is confidently hoped
that the services of a most able and distinguished officer will be secured for
the supreme Military command.[11]

Australia’s first Defence Bill was introduced in June 1901
but it proved to be a highly controversial piece of legislation. As Minister
for Defence, John Forrest (Western Australia Party, Swan, WA) oversaw the
drafting of the Bill and the regulations required to incorporate the states’ separate
military forces. Historian Jeffrey Grey noted that, ‘[i]n the interests of
economy Forrest was one of those who favoured a small permanent military force
and a part-time militia’.[12] In his second reading speech on the Bill to the House of Representatives on 9
July 1901, Forrest reassured the Parliament that the Governor-General would be
advised by the Government and by the chief command of the army and navy, noting
that there was no precedent amongst former British colonies to guide Australia
in making its defence arrangements. However, he said, ‘I believe that public
opinion is that what we have to look to for our defences in the future are the
services of our citizens’.[13]

Forrest’s first Defence Bill was greeted with considerable
hostility in the Parliament. Some members were critical of the
Bill’s technical deficiencies. For example, Billy Hughes, who would become
Australia’s fifth Prime Minister in the midst of World War I, called it ‘an olla
podrida, a jumble of clauses and provisions extracted from the various
[colonial] Defence Acts’.[14] Others were opposed to the ‘militarism’ it represented.

The Bill was tabled for reconsideration by the Federal
Military Committee in June 1901, but it lapsed and was subsequently withdrawn
on 26 March 1902. According to the historian Craig Stocking, the controversy
surrounding his Bill had tarnished Forrest’s reputation, with Prime Minister
Edmund Barton requesting that state premiers refer all defence-related
inquiries to him personally rather than through Forrest’s department.[15] Forrest introduced a new Defence Bill on 16 July 1903,
noting that he had gained more understanding of the subject in the period since
the Parliament’s debate of the first Defence Bill. He was hopeful that this new
Bill would be passed quickly, noting that the debate over his first Bill had
been exhaustive with 43 of the 75 members of the House of Representatives speaking
on the matter, their speeches extending to over 205 pages of Hansard:

For the most part, those speeches were of a
most exhaustive character—a fact which I mention simply to show that this
subject has already been well discussed by honorable members. To my mind, this
Bill has been better arranged than was the original measure. For the most part,
what was in the old Bill is to be found in this one; but in several respects it
will be found that this measure is a great improvement on the last.[16]

This new Bill empowered the Government to call up ‘unexempted’
males in times of war for home defence but not for overseas service.[17] Significantly, it also brought Australia’s defence units together as the
Commonwealth Forces. Forrest assured members that it was:

designed to deal with the formation, control
and discipline of the Defence Forces. It does not appropriate one farthing. It
does not declare how much shall be spent, or the way in which the votes of
Parliament shall be expended. It deals with the division of the forces into
permanent troops, militia, volunteers, and reserves....

The measure recognises that the military and
naval forces of the Commonwealth shall be constituted almost entirely of
citizen soldiers, and that the primary duty of such forces is to defend
Australia from invasion or attack. Provision is made for a permanent force,
which will, under existing conditions, be only sufficient for the purpose of
manning the forts and ships, working the submarine mines, arid instructing the
citizen forces. With the exception of this permanent force (which does not
number, at present, more than 1,300 men for the whole Commonwealth), all the rest
will be citizen soldiers. The citizen forces are divided into three classes,
namely, militia, or partially-paid forces; volunteers, who get no pay, a
capitation allowance being provided for corps purposes; and reserve forces,
consisting of the members of rifle clubs and others, who may be enlisted as
reservists.[18]

Forrest noted that the General Officer
Commanding, who had assisted in drafting the Bill, disagreed with the provision
that the citizen forces would not be required to serve in time of war beyond
the limits of the Commonwealth, arguing that they should be able to ‘send them
wherever they may be required’.[19] However, Forrest argued: ‘I am of opinion that citizen soldiers should not be
compelled to do more than protect their country from invasion and resist
attacks upon it’.[20]

The Senate proposed a large number of amendments, although
most were minor changes. The main issue debated before the Bill was finally
passed related to the provision for a Council of Defence, which was regarded by
some as having the potential to ‘interfere with the responsibility of Ministers
to the Parliament’.[21] The Defence Act 1903 finally
received Assent on 22 October 1903. A second Defence Act was passed in
1904.[22] This Act replaced the General Officer Commanding and Naval Officer Commanding
with an Inspector-General of the Military Forces and a Naval Commandant.

By 1905, both Britain’s and Australia’s concerns about
defence had sharpened: Britain was concerned about Germany’s naval build up and
Australia was concerned by Japan’s rise and quick defeat of the Russian navy in
that year. Australia had always been conscious of its geographic isolation from
Britain and that it was situated in a region of very different cultures.[23] Senator Andrew Dawson, as Minister for Defence in the short-lived Watson Labor
Government (27.4.1904–17.8.1904), initiated a complete reorganisation of the
command and administrative system that underpinned the Commonwealth Military
Forces.

The changes, implemented by Dawson’s successor James
Whiteside McCay, included creating a Council for Defence and Military Board
designed to give the Cabinet and Parliament more direct control over the
country’s defence administration. According to McCay, the new arrangements were
designed to:

... bring the Cabinet as a whole, which is
responsible through the Minister as the Head of the Department, into more
direct touch with the defence policy of Australia, and we shall also maintain a
closer touch between the carrying out of that policy and the Parliament which,
as the representative of the people, controls it.[24]

Nevertheless, the attempt to provide an administrative
framework for the formulation of an Australian defence policy proved to be less
than effective. The Council met only twice in ten years, and it was ultimately
abolished in 1918. According to Stockings, ‘financial restrictions, internal
bickering and personality clashes all contributed to the failure of effective
administration in the post-Federation Army’, compounded by clashes between
imperial and Australian loyalties and between politicians and military
officers.[25]

In 1906, Prime Minister Alfred Deakin began to develop his
plans to overhaul the Army as a distinctively Australian force. In December
1907, he announced a scheme of compulsory military training to the House of
Representatives. After his return from the 1907 Imperial Conference,[26] he stated:

... although there has been combination and
reconstruction, the land and sea forces of the Commonwealth are still little
more than the collective forces of the States. We now propose a new
organization for the defence of Australia. Therefore, we are about to initiate
a departure, contemplated at the inception of Federation, and intended to lay
the foundation of our defence upon a basis as wide as the Commonwealth, without
distinction of States. [27]

He also warned, however, that ‘leading nations are arming
themselves with feverish haste’ and that others must try to keep up. He felt it
was incumbent on Australia to take greater responsibility for its defence and
to play its part in the defence of the Empire, ‘to be a source of strength and
not of weakness’.[28] He went on to declare that Australia was no longer:

... outside the area of the world’s conflicts.
On the contrary, every decade brings us into closer and closer touch with the
subjects of other peoples planted in our neighbourhood, and with the interests
of other peoples more or less antagonistic to our own.[29]

In 1908, a new Defence Bill was introduced into the
Commonwealth Parliament. While the Defence Acts of 1903 and 1904 had
empowered the Commonwealth Government to call up unexempted males in times of
war, this new Bill sought to make training and service compulsory in time of
peace. According to Member for Richmond, Thomas Ewing:

This responsibility is not a small one for
any Parliament to undertake. It is not a simple matter to protect any country;
and the protection of any vast, half-developed territory, sparsely populated
and enormously rich in proportion to the population is indeed difficult. It is
more difficult here, beset as the Commonwealth is with greater dangers and
difficulties in regard to the future life and preservation of white occupation,
than exist in any part of the British Dominions. But Parliament has accepted
the responsibility, and we have to face the problem.[30]

During his Second Reading speech, the Minister for Defence,
Joseph Cook, outlined the advantages of such a scheme:

Another advantage of a force like this would
be that the men would all be recruited at one time, instead of in dribs and
drabs, as they are now, under our present haphazard system. Honorable members
will see at a glance what an advantage that will be to the sergeants who have
to train them, and put them through their drill. This system will also provide
experienced officers and non-commissioned officers, and half the rank and file
of this first fighting line will consist of experienced and mature soldiers—a
matter of very great importance. The general reserve, also, will contain a very
large number of officers and non-commissioned officers; and the rifle clubs of
Australia will find for the first time a sound and useful place as defensive
units in our army. The Bill will provide us also, if necessary—I hope we may
never have to do it, but one aim of this organization will be to provide an
expeditionary force for immediate despatch oversea or elsewhere whenever the
Government of the day feel themselves under an obligation to send a force.[31]

The proposal for compulsory military training received
bipartisan support in the Parliament, having already been endorsed by the
Opposition Labor Party at its 1908 conference.[32] Field Marshal Viscount
Kitchener, then Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India, had also visited
Australia, at the invitation of Deakin, to inspect the country’s defence
preparedness. Kitchener subsequently recommended a scheme of military training based on conscription.[33] The Defence
Act 1909 came into operation on 1 January 1911, requiring Australian
males aged between 18 and 60 years to perform militia service within Australia
and its territories.[34] While most politicians came to accept the need
for compulsory military training, it was not supported to the same extent in
the wider community.[35] The military college, Duntroon, was established in June 1911
to train officers needed for the scheme.[36]

Over the next few years Australia also began increasing its
naval force. In 1909 Britain aired its concerns about Germany’s expanding
battleship construction program. In addition, the British Committee of Imperial
Defence had determined the need to maintain armoured ships in the Pacific. At
the Imperial Conference in 1909 the Royal Navy advised Australia that, given
Australia’s isolation and remoteness from British naval strength, it could find
itself in danger in the Pacific in the face of strengthened Japanese and German
fleets. The British Admiralty’s First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher, concluded that
Australia had to establish a permanent navy of its own with a fully-manned,
self-contained fleet.[37]

The situation was complicated by changes in Australia’s
prime ministers at this time. Alfred Deakin (PROT), who replaced Andrew Fisher (ALP)
in June 1909, had previously proposed to establish a flotilla of submarines and
destroyers, but the Admiralty advocated operating a fleet unit that would cost
considerably more. The British Admiralty offered to fund the shortfall, hand
over control of the Australia Station, and transfer all imperial dockyard and
shore infrastructure to the Commonwealth. Deakin’s cabinet gave preliminary
approval to the Admiralty’s scheme in September 1909 and orders were made for
additional ships.[38] However, Fisher was returned to power seven months later. He declined the
British offer in favour of a new vessel construction program as part of
Australia’s Fleet Unit, to be funded completely by the Commonwealth. In introducing
a Bill to repeal the Naval Loan Act 1909 that had been passed by the previous
government in order to raise £3.5 million, Prime Minister Fisher stated:

The last Government entered into a naval
building programme which would practically have absorbed the whole amount they
were authorized by the Act to borrow; but they did not take steps to raise
money under it, and, so far as I know, no negotiations to that end were entered
into by my predecessor ... The objection of the Labour party to borrowing is even
stronger when the borrowing is suggested for ordinary Defence purposes. We feel
that the Commonwealth would not do justice to itself if its first entrance into
the loan market were for the purpose of obtaining money for ordinary Defence
expenditure.[39]

In November 1910 the Commonwealth Parliament began debating
the Naval Defence Bill introduced by the acting Prime Minister, Billy Hughes.
In his second reading speech, Hughes noted:

The principle adopted is that of a separate
naval auxiliary of the British Navy. In this curious Empire of ours, comprising
a congeries of separate individual nations, each pursuing its own destiny in
ways that seem more and more marvellous to outsiders as the time goes on, we
have thought it possible—and this is one of the most amazing features of the
situation—to create an Australian Navy which shall be under Commonwealth
control, and yet shall be an integral part of the British Fleet in time of
disturbance, or when an emergency shall arise. The principle is that it shall
be a Commonwealth Navy, manned and officered by Australians; and that its
purpose shall be to act, as it were, as a continual patrol of this great
coastline of ours.[40]

The Naval Defence Act, which was passed by Parliament
on 25 November 1910, provided for the establishment of a ‘reinvigorated navy’
based on the Royal Navy model, including a College and training institutions,
the separation of the naval forces into separate permanent and citizen forces,
and a new Board of Administration.[41] Finally, on 10 July 1911, the Sovereign granted the title ‘Royal
Australian Navy’ to Australia’s naval forces. In October 1913, Australia’s own
Fleet Unit, comprising a battle-cruiser, three light cruisers and three
destroyers, steamed into Sydney Harbour to public acclaim. Meanwhile, the
British Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir George King-Hall, hauled down the
British flag of the Australia Station—the British naval command responsible for
the waters surrounding the Australian continent—and passed it to the new
Australian fleet unit.[42] In just under a year Australia would be at war.[43]

The volunteers who enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force
(AIF) in 1914 included those who had undertaken the mandated but limited
military training established as a result of the 1909 legislation.[44] In addition, Australia had a navy of volunteer seamen. The federal Government
wanted Australia’s defences to be integrated into the overall defence of the
Empire and to be consulted on matters relating especially to the Pacific
region. Although Australia’s views were received with some sympathy and the Government
was given access to greater information, the real decision-making power
remained with Britain.[45]

By the time Australia entered the war it had become more
unified economically. As Crowley points out:

There was a national bank, a national
currency, nation-wide postal rates, cheaper telegraphic rates, a national
old-age and invalid pension scheme, a maternity bonus ... the commonwealth
arbitration system and the concept of a living wage. ... by 1914 the people had
become accustomed to look to the national, rather than to the state governments
for the attainment of some of their community goals.[46]

The Commonwealth had also assumed responsibility for the
administration of the Northern Territory, set up an administration in New Guinea,
staked a claim to territory in Antarctica, legislated for a High Court and
established a defence force. Historian Frank Welsh commented:

Government had succeeded government,
observing all the democratic and parliamentary proprieties perfecting the constitutional
settlement. All in all, it was an astonishing achievement, this quiet
unification of a congeries of colonies into a modern state. But not yet,
perhaps, in spite of the flag and the new capital under construction, a
continental nation.[47]

Nevertheless, at the start of WW1, Australians still saw
themselves in terms of their role within the British Empire. By the end of the
war, a greater sense of national distinctiveness would emerge.[48]

Between 1901 and 1927 the Commonwealth Parliament did not
have its own seat of government but met in Melbourne. In 1908 Canberra had been
chosen as the site for the federal capital. An international competition for
the design of Parliament House had been initiated but, with the outbreak of war
in 1914, the Minister for Home Affairs, William Archibald (ALP, Hindmarsh, SA)
announced on the first day of the new Parliament (8 October 1914)
that the competition had been postponed on several grounds:

... principally because the war would prohibit
competition among architects throughout the Continent of Europe, and confine
the competition entirely to American and Australian professional men. Many
connected with the architectural profession are now on active service and
bearing arms. One of the judges is a distinguished Austrian.[49]

On the outbreak of war, the Parliament was half the size it
is today, comprising 75 Members of the House of Representatives and 36 Senators
(see Table 1).

Table 1: representation in the
House of Representatives after each election, 1901–18

Parties

Election

Gov’t

ALP

Free Trade

Protectionist

Anti-Socialist

Liberal

Nationalist

Others

Total

1901

PROT

14

28

31

2

75

1903

PROT

23

25

26

1

75

1906

PROT

26

16

27

6

75

1910

ALP

43

31*

1

75

1913

LIB

37

38

75

1914

ALP

42

32

1

75

1917

NAT

22

53

75

*Known as Fusion in 1910.
Source: Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of
Australia.[50]
There had been five elections since Federation (1901, 1903,
1906, 1910 and 1913) with a sixth election called for 5 September 1914, and
nine prime ministerships (see Table 3). Early on there had been a number of
governments formed by coalitions of parties with no one party being able to
govern in its own right.

Table 2: representation in the
Senate after each election, 1901–1918

Parties

Date

Govt

ALP

Free Trade

Protectionist

Liberal

Nationalist

Total

1901

PROT

8

17

11

36

1.1.1904

PROT

14

12

8

36

1.1.1907

PROT

15

12

6

36

1.7.1910

ALP

23

13*

36

1.7.1913

LIB

29

7

36

5.9.1914

ALP

31

5

36

1.7.1917

NAT

12

24

36

*Known as Fusion in 1910.
Source: Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of
Australia.[51]

The party system was still evolving, in particular the two-party
system which was aided in its development by responsible government,[52] simple-majority voting and state-wide Senate electorates.[53] From 1910 and
throughout the war Australia experienced majority governments.

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) had grown out of the trade
union movement that had consolidated during the industrial unrest associated
with the 1890s depression and the so-called ‘Federation drought’ (1895–1902). In
1914, the trade union membership of about 500,000 was approximately 12 per cent
of Australia’s population (4.3 million in 1911) and a powerful force at the branch
level of the ALP. Labor had briefly been able to form government for several
months in 1904 under John (Chris) Watson (ALP, Bland, NSW) and again for just
over six months under Andrew Fisher (ALP, Wide Bay, Qld) from 1908 to 1909. It
won the 1910 election under Fisher, gaining 43 seats in the House of
Representatives (an absolute majority) and all 18 vacant Senate seats, giving
it control of the upper house.

The conservative side of politics was initially divided over
the fiscal issue of free trade versus protectionism. Elections were won and
governments formed under these banners (see Table 3) until, in response to the
growing power of the ALP, there was a fusion of conservative forces to form the
Liberal Party in 1909. Edmund Barton (PROT, Hunter, NSW), Alfred Deakin (PROT,
Ballaarat, Vic.), George Reid (Free Trade, East Sydney, NSW) and Joseph Cook
(Liberal, Parramatta, NSW) were the leaders of the conservative parties until
the 1914 election.[54]

By 1914, Australia had been led by eleven prime
ministerships occupied by seven different men (Barton, Deakin, Watson, Reid,
Fisher, Cook and Hughes), each of whom had led one of six different parties
(Protectionist, ALP, Free Trade, Liberal, National Labor and Nationalist). Furthermore,
with the exception of Barton and Hughes, each had also held the position of
Leader of the Opposition as head of one of three different parties (Free Trade,
ALP, Anti-Socialist, Fusion and Liberal).

Table 3: Prime Ministers and
governing party, 1901 ̶ 1918

Prime Minister

Governing party or parties

Period of government

Edmund Barton

Protectionist

1.1.1901 to 24.9.1903

Alfred Deakin

Protectionist

24.9.1903 to
27.4.1904

Chris Watson

ALP

27.4.1904 to
17.8.1904

George Reid

Free Trade–Protectionist

18.8.1904 to 5.7.1905

Alfred Deakin

Protectionist

5.7.1905 to
13.11.1908

Andrew Fisher

ALP

13.11.1908 to
2.6.1909

Alfred Deakin

Protectionist–Free Trade–Tariff Reform

2.6.1909 to 29.4.1910

Andrew Fisher

ALP

29.4.1910 to
24.6.1913

Joseph Cook

Liberal

24.6.1913 to
17.9.1914

Andrew Fisher

ALP

17.9.1914 to
27.10.1915

William Morris Hughes

ALP
National Labor
Nationalist

27.10.1915 to
14.11.1916
14.11.1916 to
17.2.1917
17.2.1917 to 9.2 1923

Australia had seen five federal elections from Federation in
1901 to the outbreak of World War I (1901, 1903, 1906, 1910 and 1913) and
another two during the war (1914 and 1917). From 1901 to 1918, the electoral
system used for federal elections for both the House of Representatives and the
Senate was first past the post.

The first election held on 29–30 March 1901 was largely
based on state-determined electorates. In this first election the main issue
was over tariffs—free trade or protection. No one party won a majority of seats
in either house, but Edmund Barton and his Protectionist group were able to
form government with the support of the Labor Party. The first federal parliament
which opened in Melbourne on 9 May 1901 began more as ‘a body of state
delegates than national legislators and it retained this character until the
federal system and the growth of a Labor party created a new class of federal
politician’.[56] MPs with professional backgrounds, and lawyers in particular,
dominated the Parliament and the ministry.

Despite a new federal parliament, life for most people went
on as usual. Customs houses, post offices and military volunteers were under
new management, but the public still engaged with the same people in their daily
transactions. Australians had not really expected rapid or dramatic change
because the Federation had come into being peacefully and consensually, without
revolution against Britain or opposition from Britain.[57]

The first Parliament set about establishing an independent
public service and the High Court. It introduced universal suffrage and
first-past-the-post voting in Senate and House of Representatives elections;
although enrolment was not made compulsory until 1911. [58] It also adopted the ‘White Australia’ policy[59], which was widely
supported, and a national customs tariff.[60] However, it failed to agree on a site for the national capital or establish the
Inter-state Commission or an industrial arbitration system.[61] This should not be a surprise given that Parliament, new in itself, was trying
to set up an infrastructure and machinery for a new sovereign nation where its
component states had competing interests, not just amongst themselves but with
the Commonwealth as well.

Industrial relations and arbitration replaced tariffs as the
central issue in the 1903 election held on 16 December The Conciliation and
Arbitration Bill, which sought ‘the prevention and settlement of industrial
disputes extending beyond the limits of any one State’,[62] and
which began its passage in the first federal Parliament meeting in Melbourne in
May 1901, was to become known as ‘a wrecker of governments’.[63]

The Bill, which initially passed the House but not the Senate,
lapsed at the end of the Parliament’s first session. In 1903, Attorney-General
Alfred Deakin revived the Bill, but rejected Labor’s motion to include
provision for the new Conciliation and Arbitration Court to cover state railway
employees.[64] Deakin warned that such a move would destroy the self-governing powers of the
states.[65]

Alfred Deakin succeeded Edmund Barton as prime minister at
the end of September 1903. Deakin was a popular leader with both sides of
politics. Furthermore, the federal system was operating smoothly. There was a
common market amongst the states which had also benefited financially from the
transfer of some of their responsibilities to the national government. Their
position was aided by the approach of the federal government, which was
moderate in the use of its powers and did not impede the states’ right to
borrow funds for public infrastructure.[66]

Deakin reintroduced the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill,
but rejected the Labor Party’s proposal to extend the Court’s powers to include
state public servants. He argued that this was not possible according to the Constitution,
saying: ‘nowhere in the Constitution can honorable members
discover an indication that it was the intention of its framers, or the
intention of those who adopted it on the exposition of its framers, to include
State servants of any class’.[67] Deakin resigned as Prime Minister when the House supported Labor’s
amendment to the Bill, and Chris Watson became Prime Minister leading Australia’s
first national Labor government. Four months later Watson also resigned when
the House rejected his proposal to include a substantial measure of preference
to trade unionists participating in the decisions of the Conciliation and Arbitration
Court.

George Reid (who succeeded Watson as Prime Minister) and
Allan McLean (PROT, Gippsland, Vic.) formed a Free Trade / Protectionist
coalition government which lasted ten months, during half of which the
Parliament was in recess. The Bill was reintroduced again in September 1904 and
finally passed the Senate on 9 December 1904 after three years of
debate. This second Parliament was to be Australia’s most tumultuous, with four
governments (Protectionist, ALP, Free Trade / Protectionist and Protectionist)
and three different men serving as prime minister (Deakin, Watson and Reid).[68] Deakin reclaimed the prime ministership with the support of Labor in July 1905
until November 1908. He attempted to legislate for ‘New Protection’ whereby
employers who benefited from protection against overseas competition were
expected to charge reasonable prices for their goods and provide fair and
reasonable wages and employment conditions for their employees. The High Court’s
decision on the Harvester Case in November 1907 established a minimum living
wage based on ‘the normal needs of the average employee, regarded as a human
being living in a civilised community’ and not on the employer’s capacity to
pay it.[69] In the end the
High Court invalidated much of the New Protection legislation, but the
principle of a basic wage was established and Labor came to believe that
industrial justice could not be achieved through the Parliament but only
through changing the Constitution. The first fully protective tariff was
introduced in June 1908 after lengthy parliamentary debates, the last general
debate on an issue which had dominated federal politics from the start.[70]

The 1906 election saw the Deakin Government reaffirmed, with
only half the registered electors bothering to vote. However, Deakin was even
more reliant on Labor, which had increased the number of its seats by three (to
26), because George Reid’s Free Trade party gained most of the seats (27). Reid
had shifted his party’s policy emphasis from free trade to the promotion of private
enterprise, and he attacked the socialist policies of Labor. Among other
things, Watson’s Labor proposed an independent Australian navy and compulsory
military training.[71]

In November 1908, Labor withdrew its support for Deakin
after the federal conference of the party decided against alliances with other
political groups. This decision, coupled with Labor Leader Andrew Fisher’s
proposal of a federal land tax in March 1909, pushed the non-Labor forces into
a single party. A fusion was negotiated between Deakin’s protectionists, Joseph
Cook’s free traders (he had replaced Reid as leader at the end of 1908) and
John Forrest’s Corner group (they had left the Deakin Government in 1907
because of its reliance on Labor). This fusion forced out Fisher in May 1909
and Deakin took over as prime minister. Thus began the two-party system in
national politics.[72]

The Fusion, later Liberal, Government lasted until the election
held on 13 April 1910, when it was swept away by Labor which won a clear
majority in both Houses, the first time a single party had done so in national
politics. By the 1913 election, there had been a redistribution of electorates
and compulsory voter enrolment had been introduced in 1911. At the 1913
elections, the Liberals, led by Joseph Cook, won 38 seats to the ALP’s 37 in
the House of Representatives, but Labor had control of the Senate 29 to 7.
Labor used its upper house majority to resurrect its proposals to extend the Commonwealth’s
powers in the areas of trade and commerce, the control of corporations, labour
and employment, and combinations of monopolies. The proposals were put to
voters in two referendums (in 1911 and 1913), and both were unsuccessful.[73]

For their part, the Liberals looked for a way out of their
precarious parliamentary position. Early in 1914, Prime Minister Joseph Cook
sought to bring about conditions which would enable him to request a double
dissolution election from the Governor-General. The Government submitted two
bills which it knew the Labor Party would reject. The Government Preference
Prohibition Bill would prevent preference being given to unionists in
Commonwealth work. Unsurprisingly, the Bill was rejected in the Senate for a
second time on 28 May 1914 after an interval of three months from when it was
first rejected. This provided the Government with a trigger for a double
dissolution election under section 57 of the Constitution.[74] The second bill,
the Postal Voting Restoration Bill, had amendments proposed that were not
accepted by the Government.

Newly-arrived Governor-General Ronald Munro Ferguson
initially looked towards Westminster practices to settle the dispute. He was
inclined to call another House of Representatives election. However, this would
have been to Labor’s advantage as its majority in the Senate would be
undisturbed. He realised that a double dissolution was the only option.[75] With Cook’s agreement, he sought advice from the Chief Justice of the High
Court, Samuel Griffith. Griffith, one of the drafters of the Constitution
advised him that the existence of a double dissolution trigger alone did not
automatically lead to the granting of such an election.[76] He further advised
that while the Governor-General had the power to grant such an election, he
should convince himself:

that the proposed law as to which the Houses
have differed in opinion is one of such public importance that it should be
referred to the electors of the Commonwealth for immediate decision by means of
a complete renewal of both Houses, or that there exists such a state of
practical deadlock in legislation as can only be ended in that way. As to the
existence of either condition he must form his own judgment. Although he cannot
act except upon advice of his Ministers, he is not bound to follow their advice
but is in the position of an independent arbiter.[77]

The Governor-General granted Cook his double dissolution on
4 June 1914. Political scientist John Nethercote gives credit to Cook for
establishing some basic principles in the process of settling this dispute: ‘In
his insistence that our governance is a matter of our own constitution, not a deference
to Westminster, he was a powerful and original spokesman for self-government
and for responsible government in Australia.’[78]

If the Liberals were frustrated by their numbers in
Parliament, Labor was not without its tensions. Although it had won the 1910
election, had control of the Senate after the 1913 election and was in power in
three states (NSW, Western Australia and Tasmania) at the beginning of 1914,
there were tensions between the industrial and political wings of the labour
movement. As historian Joan Beaumont puts it:

Essentially the
question was whether Labor should use political power to improve worker
conditions by ‘civilising’ rather than destroying capitalism? Should the
workers rely on the new system of arbitration or should they pursue change
through the ‘direct action’ of the strike, as the syndicated and anarchist
elements of the movement advocated? These tensions, simmering within the labour
movement in 1914, would intensify under the pressures of war.[79]

The 1914 election was announced on 26 June 1914—a double
dissolution election to be held on 5 September 1914. Parliament was
prorogued on 27 June, the day before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand
and dissolved on 30 July. Both parties had already formally launched their
election campaigns before war broke out—Labor on 6 July and the Liberals on 15
July.

The election campaign focussed on domestic issues with
neither Prime Minister Joseph Cook nor Opposition Leader Andrew Fisher
mentioning the events in Europe until the end of July. Both leaders campaigned
on much the same issues they had campaigned on at the 1913 election. Cook
wanted to reform the Constitution to give the Commonwealth power over
monopolies, introduce a uniform companies Act and set up wage fixing tribunals.
He also said he wanted to introduce a new voting system—proportional
representation in the Senate and preferential voting for the House of
Representatives.[80] Fisher also wanted to reform the Constitution to give the Commonwealth greater
power. He promised marketing agencies for primary producers, an inquiry into
the prevention of diseases such as tuberculosis and help for orphans.[81]

On 30 July 1914, the Governor-General Munro Ferguson received
the first official telegram from London warning that war was imminent. As
historian Douglas Newton notes, the Governor-General of Australia at this time ‘served
in practice not only as commander-in-chief of the military forces, but also as
a kind of Australian foreign minister’, and all Imperial communications were
sent through the vice-regal channel.[82] The Governor-General passed a copy of the telegram to Senator Edward Millen,
the Minister of Defence, who was in Sydney for a political rally in Mosman. The
following evening the Governor-General telegrammed the Prime Minister in Ballarat:
‘Would it not be well, in view of latest news from Europe, that ministers
should meet in order that Imperial Government may know what support to expect
from Australia?’[83] This was an unusual step as it is not up to a governor-general to suggest that
Cabinet meet. Ferguson followed up with a letter to the Prime Minister,
explaining that he had suggested a Cabinet meeting because of the need for the
Cook Government to ‘decide its line of action’, pointing out that Canada had
already made its decision to commit to war.[84] Cook agreed and as
many cabinet ministers as could headed for Melbourne even though they were out
and about campaigning. Only five of the ten ministers made it to the emergency
Cabinet meeting called for Monday 3 August.

The so-called ‘Warning Telegram’ was listed in Australia’s ‘General
Scheme of Defence’ (1913) as the first of seven possible telegrams that Britain
would forward to Australia in the event that war was imminent. Each telegram required
certain actions to be taken, the first being to ‘Adopt Precautionary Stage
against (Power(s)’. In reality, the ‘Warning Telegram’ received by the
Governor-General did not specify the ‘Power’ (or country) to which the
precautionary stage applied. Furthermore, the Governor-General’s official
secretary had difficulty in deciphering the message and transcribed the word ‘adopt’
as ‘adoption (adopt?)’, thereby making the nature of the message unclear as to
whether it was a request for information about the adoption of the
precautionary stage or a directive to adopt it. According to Newton’s close
reading of events, ‘there followed some confusion ... in Cook’s circle that
lasted until Saturday’, exacerbated by the fact that the Prime Minister was
campaigning in rural Victoria and his staff, based with him in Ballarat, were also
unable to decipher the message because they did not have the key to the cipher
with them.[85]

That night both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the
Opposition responded in similar terms. The Prime Minister told a meeting at
Horsham in Victoria: ‘... whatever happens Australia is a part of the Empire right
to the full. Remember that when the Empire is at war so is Australia at war’.[86] The Opposition Leader at Colac in Victoria said: ‘Should the worst happen,
after everything has been done that honour will permit, Australians will stand
beside [the mother country] to help and defend her to our last man and our last
shilling.’[87]

A few days later, on Monday 3 August, Cabinet agreed to
offer the British Government two things: to put the newly-acquired Australian
fleet of seven ships under control of the British Admiralty, and to send an
expeditionary force of 20,000 troops overseas to wherever it was required.
Furthermore, it offered to bear all associated costs. The cable was sent to
London at 6.00 pm that evening, even before Britain had decided its own
response to the events in Europe and some 40 hours before it actually declared
war.[88] Newton says about the cable that ‘In a sense, it was the birth certificate of
Anzac.’[89] The Prime Minister reiterated Australia’s support for Britain saying: ‘If the
Armageddon is to come you and I shall be in it.’[90] According to the
Australian War Memorial:

The outbreak of war was greeted in Australia, as in many
other places, with great public enthusiasm. In response to the overwhelming
number of volunteers, the authorities set exacting physical standards for
recruits.[91]

Labor expressed no opposition to
the Government’s action, having as far back as 1910 accepted that while there
were advantages in being a part of the British Empire, one of the accepted disadvantages,
as stated by Defence Minister George Pearce, was that Australia:

... may at any time be involved in a war in
the causing of which we had no voice, and in which we have no desire to take
part. But, nevertheless, by reason of the fact that we are part of the Empire,
we may be called upon, willy nilly, to bear the consequences of our Imperial
connexion.[92]

Furthermore, on the evening of
Sunday 2 August, both Fisher and Billy Hughes, separately, issued statements
indicating that at such a time the interests of the nation were above party
politics. They were responding to Liberal suggestions that Labor was ‘dragging
its feet’ on defence and that its policy would adversely affect Australia.[93]

It needs to be remembered that
this international crisis occurred right in the middle of campaigning for Australia’s
first double dissolution election following a parliament in which the
Government had a majority of just one seat in the lower house and the
Opposition had control of the upper house. It was bound to be a hard-fought
political campaign. Labor’s stance could be seen as a way of neutralising
defence and Home Rule for Ireland as issues of difference between the parties.[94] The issue of Home Rule had recently re-emerged. There were large public
meetings supporting Home Rule in May and June 1914, which Fisher and other
Labor leaders had attended, countered by anti-Home Rule demonstrations.[95] Furthermore, the Senate, where Labor had a clear majority, had passed a
resolution of support (25 to 5) on 25 June 1914:

That, in view of the opinion expressed by
the London Times, that “Nothing just now could exercise a more salutary
influence,” in Great Britain, “ than an authoritative pronouncement by the
overseas peoples upon the Irish question,” and accepting that journal as
interpreting correctly the feelings of an important section of the inhabitants
of Great Britain and Ireland, the Senate desires to reaffirm, and does hereby
re-affirm, the Address to His Majesty the late King, passed on the 23rd
November, 1905, as follows: - “ That, in accordance with the most treasured
traditions of British Government and British justice, and for the cementing of
the Empire into one harmonious whole, this Senate is of opinion that Home Rule
should be granted to Ireland.”[96]

At midnight on Tuesday 4 August (central European time)
[Wednesday 5 August in Australia], Britain’s ultimatum to Germany over its
invasion of Belgium expired and therefore Britain and its Empire were at war.[97] Australia received official notification via the Governor-General just after
midday.[98] At Britain’s request a small volunteer force, the Australian
Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF), was assembled in August
1914 to invade German New Guinea and destroy German wireless stations, while
New Zealand occupied the Pacific colony of German Samoa and Japan declared war
on Germany. By October the Japanese naval forces had seized the German
territories of Marianas, the Carolines, Marshall Islands and Palau in
Micronesia.[99] Apart from removing a threat on Australia’s doorstep, the acquisition
of German New Guinea fitted with Australia’s ‘shopping list of colonial
conquests’ included in the 1913 ‘General Scheme of Defence’.[100]

On an emotional level, Australia’s automatic entry to the
war was accepted by the Government, the Parliament and the people,
notwithstanding some dissent from the left wing of the labour movement. As
Granville Ryrie (LIB/NAT, North Sydney, NSW) put it:

‘... if the Empire is at
war—I do not care what the cause of the quarrel may be or who created it—we, as
an integral part of the British Empire, are at war and must take our own part
in it.’[101]

Britain was often referred to as the ‘Home Country’, the ‘Mother
Country’ or ‘Home’ in parliamentary debates. For example, in debating the Naval
Loan Bill 1909, Charles Frazer (ALP, Kalgoorlie, WA) said:

The British people are already taxed
considerably over £1 a head for the naval defence of the Home Country and the
oversea Dominions, while in Australia the Government refuse to add to the
taxation of people for defence purposes, though they now only pay a few paltry
shillings per head, and are far better able to pay than those at Home.[102]

Parliament, which had been dissolved on 30 July 1914, was
generally considered irrelevant in any decision as to whether Australia would
go to war or remain neutral. This arrangement was not just sentiment—it was
underscored by legal and constitutional arrangements. Australia accepted the
authority of the British Government and its Parliament in such matters. There
was no suggestion that the external affairs power in Australia’s Constitution
extended to declaring war.[103] As Jonathan Curtis in another Parliamentary Library research paper puts it:

Notwithstanding that the Australian
Constitution provided that the Commonwealth Parliament could legislate with
respect to both defence and external affairs (subsections 51(vi) and (xxix)
respectively), and the Executive had the broader executive power of section 61,
the Australian Government knew that the British Imperial Government remained
responsible for the foreign policy of the empire including declarations of war
and the power to enter treaties. This reflected the legal status of all of
Britain’s self-governing colonies, which also went to war: Canada, New Zealand,
and South Africa and remained the case in Australia until the enactment of the Statute
of Westminster (Adoption) Act 1943 (Cth).[104]

The Government’s role was to decide the nature and extent of
Australia’s involvement in the war. It did this without consulting Parliament,
notwithstanding that it was dissolved at the time. Nevertheless, it should be
noted that, on 14 January 1902, Prime Minister Edmund Barton had informed the
Parliament that the Government, without Parliament’s knowledge or approval, had
agreed to a request from Britain on 21 December1901 that it send a
contingent of 1,000 troops to the Boer War. He explained:

Had this request for troops come to the
Government while Parliament was sitting no action would have been taken without
a full opportunity for discussion; though the Government certainly would not
have refused—it would have agreed to send any troops, and would have submitted,
if the House was not sitting, its determination to Parliament afterwards, for
honorable members to take such action as they might be advised.[105]

In 1914, some in the Opposition and the media felt that the
situation was serious enough for Parliament to be recalled before the election.
There were even calls for the election to be postponed because there was little
public interest in it and yet it was conceded that there would be even less
interest if it was held a few months later with ‘the clashing of great armies
and navies around us’.[106] On the other hand, it was felt that the election should be held as soon as
possible so that MPs could meet to discuss the situation. As the writs for the
election had already been issued, neither option was likely to occur. Another
proposal was for the Parliament to be called together as a ‘council of the
nation’.[107]

On 6 August 1914, Billy Hughes, who would become Australia’s
wartime Prime Minister in October 1915, proposed a novel solution: each party
should agree to not oppose sitting members in order to ensure continuity of
government. Parliament could then meet immediately after the election.
Alternatively, the proclamation dissolving Parliament should be revoked, a
highly unconstitutional procedure that Hughes argued could be validated if the
British Parliament passed an Indemnity Act.[108]

These ideas were not accepted by Cook and the election
campaign continued. Labor comfortably won the election, regaining most of the
seats it had lost in 1913. In the House of Representatives Labor held 42 seats
to the Liberals’ 32 and one Independent, and increased its majority in the
Senate winning 31 seats to the Liberals’ 5. Previously the difference had been
29 to 7. Voter turnout was 73.5%.[109]

Parliament resumed on 8 October 1914 with Fisher as Prime
Minister, Hughes as his deputy and Cook as Opposition Leader. The
Governor-General’s speech reiterated the Government’s commitment of troops to
the war. It noted that the Australian Navy had been placed at the disposal of
the British Admiralty and that its presence had ensured that the waters around
Samoa and New Guinea had been kept clear of enemy ships. Nevertheless, it
recorded the loss of the Australian submarine AE1 in that campaign. The speech
also pledged a gift of £100,000 to Belgium and outlined proposed wartime
measures, such as a pension scheme for Australians engaged in active service
and their dependants, a uniform gauge for the railways and laws relating to
trading with the enemy.[110] Even as his Government was immersed in the war crisis,
Fisher continued to hope that Labor’s vision for Australia’s national
development and social reform would stand as a model for regenerating the ‘Old
Land’: ‘It is enough for us to know that we are a progressive country ... that,
taking all in all ... perhaps socially the most progressive in the world’.[111]

The first convoy carrying troops from the Australian
Imperial Force (AIF) and the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) departed
from Albany in Western Australia on 1 November 1914. A little over a week later,
on 9 November, one of the escorts, HMAS Sydney, destroyed the German
cruiser SMS Emden off the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.[112] Two days later the
Prime Minister expressed his delight to the House. After outlining the nature
of the engagement, he read out some congratulatory telegrams, including one
from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and then said:

There is a host of other telegrams from
within Australia and from individuals outside the Commonwealth, but I do not
think I need trouble the House with them. I have only to add that I do not
think there is a soul in Australia but feels very happy indeed that such an
opportunity arose, and such a success has followed the first serious naval action
by our own ships.[113]

Although Labor was in power, it was hardly united. Two
strong men, Hughes from NSW and Victoria’s Frank Anstey (ALP, Bourke, Vic.)
were opposed on most issues relating to the war, including the gift to Belgium.
Hughes’ ‘right-wing realism’ was at odds with Anstey’s ‘idealistic socialism’.[114] Whereas Hughes broadly viewed the war through the prism of good versus evil,
Anstey viewed it as a war between opposing capitalists where the outcome would
be ‘the enslavement of labour’.[115] Anstey was supported in his opposition to Hughes by Frank Brennan (ALP, Batman,
Vic.), William Maloney (ALP, Melbourne, Vic.) and King O’Malley (ALP, Darwin,
Tas.).[116]

Parliament quickly enacted the War Precautions Act 1914 in late October 1914.[117] The Act enabled regulations to be made by the executive branch of government
for the public safety and defence of Australia. As Hughes put it:

The Bill confers upon the Commonwealth power
to make orders and regulations of a far reaching character, and, as honorable
members may see in clauses 4 and 5, is. mainly directed to preventing the
leakage of important secrets, to secure the safety of means of communication,
railways, docks, harbors, or public works, and to deal effectively with aliens,
and, in certain circumstances, with naturalized persons. Its aim is to prevent
the disclosure of important information, to give power to deport, and otherwise
deal with aliens, to interrogate and obtain information in various ways, and to
appoint officers to carry into effect any orders or regulations which may be
made under the Bill.[118]

Whilst such legislation granting government emergency powers
to provide for internal security on the home front during wartime was not
remarkable, ‘in practice it gave the executive extraordinary discretion and
arbitrary power’ over civil society.[119] At the outbreak
of war, for example, ‘enemy aliens’ of German or Austrian birth were required
to register with the police and eventually forced into internment.[120] Nevertheless, the Opposition was prepared to trust the
Government that these measures were necessary, with Cook saying:

Recognising that these drastic powers are
necessary to enable those in our midst, who seek to destroy the integrity and
to injure the interests of the Empire, to be dealt with, I shall give the
Government cordial support in passing this and other measures having that
object in view.[121]

Although this Bill quickly became law, another such Bill (War
Precautions Bill 1915) was brought in six months later in April 1915 on
the basis that the 1914 Act was found to be insufficiently detailed to cover
the Government’s exercise of its powers in times of war. In his second reading
speech, the Assistant Minister to the Minister for the Navy, Jens Jensen (ALP,
Bass, Tas.), said the Bill:

... concerns chiefly matters of detail, and is
intended to fill up gaps which have been found to exist under the operation of
the original Act. It makes it clear that offences against the regulations are
punishable on summary conviction ... civilians who are charged under the War
Precautions Act shall have the right to trial in a civil Court, a right now
non-existent.[122]

He praised manufacturers for their cooperation and for
accepting the prices at which the Commonwealth had acquired goods. This
legislation closely followed that which was enacted in Britain.[123] Opposition Leader Cook accepted the need for such ‘extraordinary’ powers but
cautioned the Government to: ‘Take your Bill; use it wisely,
as no doubt you will; use it, anyhow, in the interests of the country, and for
the purpose of securing the safety and the welfare of its people’.[124]

He wondered if the legislation was constitutional but felt
that this was not the time to test that possibility. He also sought, and
received, assurance that the provisions of the Bill would be limited to the
duration of the war.[125] James Mathews (ALP, Melbourne Ports, Vic.) was less
accepting. He was concerned that freedom of speech would be curbed by section
4(d) of the Bill which would enable:

The Governor-General [to] make regulations
for securing the public safety and the defence of the Commonwealth ... (d) to
prevent the spread of false reports or reports likely to cause disaffection to
His Majesty or public alarm, or to interfere with the success of His Majesty’s
forces by land or sea, or to prejudice His Majesty’s relations with foreign
powers.[126]

Mathews was also concerned that the Bill prevented
servicemen, who were required to have matters heard by a military court, from
having the same access as civilians to the civil courts.[127] Furthermore,
Charles McGrath (ALP, Ballaarat, Vic.) felt that too much power was being
placed in the hands of the military.[128] Concern
was also expressed that the Bill allowed the Executive to make regulations,
thus bypassing Parliament.[129] It was also argued that Australia was not facing a national crisis and that ‘there
is no fear of invasion of Australia’.[130] Hughes contended
that the current war did require such measures but that the Government would
not abuse them.[131] He further pointed out that in the six months since the enactment of the War Precautions Act there had not been ‘one instance of an abuse of power’.[132]

While Parliament was debating these measures, Australian and
New Zealand forces landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 as part of an
Allied campaign to capture the Gallipoli peninsula. A few days later Fisher
informed the House of this saying: ‘news reaches us that the action is
proceeding satisfactorily’. He then read out a cablegram from the Secretary of
State for the Colonies: ‘His Majesty’s Government desire me to offer you their
warmest congratulations on the splendid gallantry and magnificent achievement
of your contingent in the successful progress of the operations at the
Dardanelles.’[133]

He then read out the Government’s reply sent through the
Governor-General:

The Government and people of Australia are
deeply gratified to learn that their troops have won distinction in their first
encounter with the enemy. We are confident that they will carry the King’s
colours to further victory.[134]

Matters about Gallipoli and Egypt raised in Parliament
mainly focussed on the problem of gaining information about casualties from
that front and the raising of individual cases in which letters from there had
taken a long time to reach their anxious relatives. For example, Arthur Rodgers
(Lib, Wannon, Vic.) said:

The chief object of my rising is to make a
suggestion to the Postmaster-General with regard to communications passing
between Australia and the seat of war, in which we are more directly interested—Gallipoli
and Egypt. I want to ask the Postmaster-General if he and his Government will
take into favorable consideration the question of appointing an officer
directly responsible to the Minister to look after the delivery of all
correspondence and the despatch of all cable matter from the seat of war to
Australia. Hansard is bristling with illustrations of the miscarriage of
communications between relatives in Australia and. soldiers at the front. Some
have been rather heart-rending, mothers and widows having had to wait six weeks
or two months to learn the fate of their relatives.[135]

The landing at Gallipoli was named Anzac Day in 1916 and
marked by parades, church services and ceremonies which were held in London as
well as Australia. Throughout the war it would be commemorated in patriotic
rallies and used as a means to raise recruiting levels.[136] It received
little attention in Parliament except when MPs raised questions about things
that went awry on the day. For example, in 1916 the Minister for the Navy was
asked if he had seen a press report:

... that the officers on board the transport
which arrived in Sydney on Thursday last with wounded soldiers celebrated Anzac
Day by sitting down to a sumptuous repast worthy of Lucullus, whilst the rank
and file had stew inflicted upon them three times that day, and were given the
privilege of purchasing the menu cards from the officers’ mess at 6d. each.[137]

On another occasion, James Fenton (ALP, Maribyrnong, Vic.)
wanted to know why the Governor-General had left ‘the saluting
base at Parliament House ... before the arrival of the bulk of the returned
soldiers in the Anzac Day procession.’[138]

At the end of December 1914 after three months of managing
important decisions about the war, an exhausted Fisher left for New Zealand,
encouraged by Hughes, to recuperate for a month. However, he did mix recreation
with some business by taking along some staff, an Opposition MP who was also a
friend, and a ‘young political journalist’ Keith Murdoch.[139]

In mid-1915, in a show of bipartisanship, the Government
established an advisory body consisting of eight members and four senators,
half nominated by the Government and half by the Opposition. The Federal
Parliamentary War Committee focussed only on issues referred to it by the
Government and dealt mainly with recruitment and matters facing returned
soldiers.[140]

Fisher wearied of Parliament and resigned on 27 October 1915
after he acceded to pressure from the Australian Workers’ Union which had
sought amendments to the Arbitration Act before Parliament adjourned.
However, this meant that he would have to break an undertaking to Cook that
Parliament would be adjourned on 2 September. He apologised for breaking
the arrangement, resigned, and went on to become Australia’s High Commissioner to
the United Kingdom in early 1916.[141]

Hughes took over as Prime Minister, retaining the portfolio
of Attorney-General and increasing the size of his ministry to nine. Senator
George Pearce (ALP, WA) was his deputy. Hughes pushed on with his earlier
attempts to amend the Constitution in the six areas of trade and commerce
(section 51(i)), corporations (section 51(xx)), industrial matters (section 51(xxxv)),
and to empower the Parliament to make laws with respect to railway disputes,
trusts and the nationalisation of monopolies. A polling date was set for
December 1915 to hold a prices referendum. However, he was persuaded that war
was not the right time to seek approval from the population for such
wide-ranging powers. Instead, he sought and received agreement from the state premiers
(five of whom were Labor) to refer the necessary powers from the states to the
Commonwealth as allowed for under section 51(xxxvii) of the Constitution.
However, as Anstey predicted, the referrals were blocked by the states’
conservative upper houses and never eventuated. Hughes recalled Parliament to
reinstate the referendum Bills but time ran out before he departed via North
America for London near the end of January 1916 leaving Pearce in charge.[142] Hughes was heavily criticised within the labour movement for abandoning the
prices referendum. He was called ‘a doddering Tory’ by Labor Call on 9 December 1915
and was almost censured by the Federal Labor Executive at a special meeting in
January 1916.[143]

Despite these failed attempts to amend the Constitution, in
June 1916 the High Court dismissed a challenge to the War Precautions Act
1914 and its regulations, thereby giving the defence powers under section
51 of the Constitution a very wide interpretation.[144] Hughes was away
for seven months and, as Souter has observed, it was as if he had ‘taken the
authority of parliament with him’.[145] The House sat for only ten days in May and only 32 days for
the whole year. In Parliament’s first 15 years it had sat for an average of 88
days per year. Table 6 gives further details of the number of days the House of
Representatives sat each year from 1901 to 1918.

Arriving in England on 7 March 1916, Hughes’ energy captured
the public imagination. His speeches were ‘electrifying’ and reached a wide
audience as he called for increased economic pressure to be put on Germany and
for there to be closer collaboration with Britain’s empire countries.[146] He turned for advice to the aforementioned Keith Murdoch who was in charge of
an Australian newspaper cable service. Bypassing his High Commissioner, Fisher,
Hughes dealt directly with the top echelons of the British Government and
attended meetings of its Cabinet and War Committee. He also visited the Western
Front in France.[147]

Hughes returned to Australia reinforced in his conviction
that military conscription was necessary if Australia and the Commonwealth were
to be protected and if responsibility was to be shared equitably. He told
Parliament at the end of August 1916:

In view of certain urgent and grave
communications from the War Council of Great Britain, and of the present state
of the war, and the duty of Australia in regard thereto, and as a result of
long and earnest deliberation, the Government have arrived at the conclusion
that the voluntary system of recruiting cannot be relied upon to supply that
steady stream of reinforcements necessary to maintain the Australian
Expeditionary Forces at their full strength.[148]

He then went on to spell out the exact nature of the problem:

The number of reinforcements required for
next month is 32,500, and subsequently 16,500 a month. The number of recruits
for June was 6,375; July, 6,170; and up to 23rd August, 4,144; or a total of 16,689.
The most recent list for eleven days shows the number of casualties to be
6,743. These figures speak for themselves. They show that the position which
confronts the Government, the Parliament, and the people, is that while it is
our clear duty to keep the number of our Forces up to their full strength, the
stream of recruits under the voluntary system has fallen to less than one-third
of what is necessary.[149]

Hughes was initially inclined to bring about conscription
through an Act of Parliament as had been done in Britain and New Zealand.
However, he soon realised that this path might not guarantee success. There was
much opposition from within his own side of politics and from the trade union
movement which saw conscription as a human rights issue and as a way of
reducing working conditions. Introducing conscription through regulation may
also have been problematic as there was no guarantee Hughes could rely on the
Executive Council and the Senate might disallow such a regulation.[150]

This left a plebiscite as the only option.[151] Hughes introduced
the Military Service Referendum Bill on 13 September 1916 and exacerbated
the split within the Labor Party which had been apparent from late 1915. Trade
and Customs Minister, Frank Tudor (ALP, Yarra, Vic.), resigned the next day, with
three other ministers doing likewise before the October plebiscite. The Bill
finally passed Parliament on Saturday 23 September with the
plebiscite to be held on 28 October 1916.

The emotive plebiscite campaign over conscription divided
Australian society, with various motivations fuelling the arguments both for
and against. For example, those who supported conscription claimed that it
would be the most effective means of building a force large enough to quickly
and decisively win the war.[152] Additionally, pro-conscriptionists contended that conscription would ensure
equality of sacrifice in the war effort, and cited New Zealand’s introduction
of conscription as a position to emulate to maintain fairness and Australia’s
own self-respect.[153]

Regarding the anti-conscriptionist cause, their arguments
included a strong aversion to citizens being forced to serve in an overseas
conflict against their will and without consultation, as well as fears that
conscription would lead to requirements for female, child and immigrant labour.[154]

The question put to the people on 28 October was: ‘Are you
in favour of the Government having, in this grave emergency, the same
compulsory powers over citizens in regard to requiring their military service,
for the term of this war, outside the Commonwealth, as it has now in regard to
military service within the Commonwealth?’[155]

The answer was ‘No’ overall, by a margin of 72,476 votes
(3.22%) and ‘No’ in three states (NSW, Queensland and South Australia). Of the
members of the AIF who cast formal votes, 72,399 (55.14%) voted in favour of
conscription and 58,894 (44.86%) voted against it.[156]

Table 4: Results (votes and percentage) of the 1916
Military Service plebiscite

For

Against

New South Wales

356,805

42.92%

474,544

57.08%

Victoria

353,930

51.88%

328,216

48.12%

Queensland

144,200

47.71%

158,051

52.29%

South Australia

87,924

42.44%

119,236

57.56%

Western Australia

94,069

69.71%

40,884

30.29%

Tasmania

48,493

56.17%

37,833

43.83%

Federal Territories

2,136

62.73%

1,269

37.27%

Total

1,087,557

48.39%

1,160,033

51.61%

Source: Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of
Australia 2014[157]

At the next Caucus meeting on 14 November 1916, Hughes’
leadership was challenged. His response was to demand that those who supported
him to follow him out of the room. Thirteen members and 11 senators from a
caucus of 64 did so. This group decided to act as a separate party (later named
the National Labor Party) and to support Hughes’ new ministry. Hughes gained
the support of the Liberals as long as he concentrated on the war effort.
Governor-General Munro Ferguson accepted that Hughes could continue to govern
and granted him a commission to form a new government.[158]

In December 1916, a special conference of the Labor Party
expelled all those who had supported conscription. In early 1917 Hughes formed
a fusion/coalition with the Liberals led by Joseph Cook. Hughes needed the
electoral organisation of an established party and the Liberals needed to avoid
an early election as they would be hampered by the ‘No’ vote in the plebiscite.
They agreed to support Hughes as Prime Minister as long as he tried to extend
Parliament to October 1918 or six months after the end of the war, whichever
came sooner.[159]

Parliament resumed on 8 February 1917 and Hughes’ third
ministry was sworn in on 17 February. Hughes sought to make good his
undertaking to extend the life of the Parliament. This could only be done
through changing the Constitution or by an amendment of the Commonwealth
Constitution Act in the United Kingdom Parliament. The former course of action
required a referendum which, given the electorate’s recent propensity to reject
changes, was not considered to be a viable option.

The latter course required a resolution to be passed by both
Houses before a proposed amendment could be voted on in the British Parliament.[160] The resolution which passed the House of Representatives on 2 March by 34 votes
to 17 votes was:

Whereas, by reason of the existence of a
state of war, and by reason of the immediate meeting of an Imperial Conference
for the discussion of questions of paramount importance to the Commonwealth and
to the British Empire, it is imperatively necessary that the forthcoming elections for both Houses of the Parliament of
the Commonwealth should be postponed: And whereas, in the existing
circumstances, this can only be effected by an Act of the Parliament of the
United Kingdom: Now therefore this House resolves: That the Imperial Government
be requested to provide by legislation for the extension of the duration of the
present House of Representatives until the expiration of six months after the
final declaration of peace, or until the 8th day of October, 1918, whichever is
the shorter period, and for such provision in relation to the terms of senators
and the holding of Senate elections as will enable the next elections for the
Senate to be held at the same time as the next general election for the House
of Representatives, and consequential adjustments to be made regarding
subsequent elections.[161]

However, the numbers were against Hughes in the Senate, 20
to 16. As ‘luck’ would have it, three of Tasmania’s four Labor senators were in
poor health. So, the Government sent one (Senator James Long (ALP, Tas.)) off
to the Dutch East Indies on a trade mission, another (Senator James Guy, (ALP,
Tas.)) reported from hospital his inability to attend Parliament, and the third
(Senator Rudolph Ready, (ALP, Tas.)) tendered his resignation after being
alarmed by a fainting episode in Parliament House two days earlier.

With Ready resigning at 6 pm on 1 March, Hughes immediately
sought to fill the casual vacancy with someone who would support his
resolution. In a series of events worthy of the script for any modern day
political drama, he had his man, John Earle, former Premier of Tasmania, ready
to be sworn in when the Senate met the following morning. However, two
Tasmanian Liberal senators (Thomas Bakhap and John Keating), affronted by what
they viewed as an attack on their state, indicated that they would vote against
the resolution. Hughes’ manoeuvrings had come to nought and there was no point
in putting the resolution to a vote.

With an election having been called but with Parliament yet
to be dissolved, the Commonwealth
Electoral (War-time) Act 1917 was passed on 17 March.[162] The Act applied
specifically to elections held during the war and for six months after it had
ended. All members of the forces of voting age, including munitions and other
workers, and Army nurses, serving overseas at the time of an election were
entitled to vote irrespective of whether or not they were enrolled. This could
be in the division in which they resided, or else in the division in which
their next of kin resided. Such electors would vote for either the ‘Ministerialist’,
that is, the Government or the opposition party, rather than for a candidate.
Their votes would thus be counted as a vote for the candidates (Senate) or
candidate (House of Representatives) from the chosen party in the division in
which they were judged to be voting. The Prime Minister and Leader of the
Opposition were to designate their party candidates in each division or state.
This model, as Patrick Glynn MP noted in his second reading speech, was based
on the Canadian system: ‘As the ordinary
electoral method cannot be followed, it is proposed to allow our men abroad to
vote for definite groups, that is, for Ministerialists, or for Oppositionists,
as they choose.’[163]

Initially, the Government did not intend for the Act to
cover munition workers who had been invited ‘Home’ by the Imperial Government
because, although they were on lists, and could be regarded ‘as associated with
our Military Forces’, they were ‘so scattered about that it would be very
difficult to provide machinery’ to enable their vote to be registered.[164] People who worked on the transport ships were also to be excluded from the
provisions of the Act because ‘their names are not on official lists, most of
them will be at sea when the vote is taken, and, in any case, their votes could
not easily be allocated to particular districts’.[165] Munition workers who went to Britain of their own accord were
also to be excluded because their names were not known.[166]

However, the Opposition asked that Australians working in
the larger munition and ship-building factories in Britain be included in the
provisions of the Bill. The Opposition also sought to have the names of the
candidates on the ballot paper, not just the parties (‘Ministerial’ or ‘Opposition’),
or at least have the names more readily available to each soldier than just having
a list of candidates distributed amongst them. Another complicating factor was
that before the split in the Labor Party in 1916, over 100,000 men had gone
overseas and were unlikely to have closely followed the political situation
back in Australia.[167] Adding to the
possible confusion was the fact that there had been three changes of government,
three ministries and three oppositions since the war began.

During debate on the Bill it was pointed out that these
provisions only applied to soldiers aged 21 or older as that was the voting age
at the time. As William McWilliams (NAT, Franklin, Tas.) protested: ‘A young
man who is old enough to fight for his country ought to be considered old
enough to vote at elections for the Parliament of his country.’[168]

The Government responded that giving all overseas soldiers
the vote would involve changing the electoral law and that the extended
franchise would be withdrawn at the end of the war. Minister for Home and
Territories, Patrick Glynn, said: ‘I think that it is better to keep the Bill
strictly to its original object, which is to prevent those at the front from
being deprived of their existing rights.’[169]

The Act also prevented naturalised British subjects born in
enemy territory from voting unless they had arrived in Australia from France,
Italy or Denmark before those countries became part of Germany or Austria. An
electoral official could check the bona fides of prospective voters by asking
them: ‘Are you a naturalized British subject who was born in an enemy country
within the meaning of the Commonwealth Electoral (War-time) Act 1917?’[170]

Parliament was dissolved on 26 March and elections were held
on 5 May 1917. The election campaign was all about the war. Hughes campaigned for
the seat of Bendigo with the slogan ‘Win the War’, accompanied by three Win the
War Senate candidates.[171] He railed against those who profiteered from the war and proposed a tax on war
profits and the continuation of controls on prices. His ‘populate or perish’
message was largely directed at the country constituency for whom he promised a
soldier settlement scheme for those returning from the war.

Frank Tudor led Labor, also pledging to win the war but
without conscription. He too put forward benefit schemes for returned servicemen.
The six constitutional amendments put before the people in 1913 would again be
presented to them.

Hughes decided not only to move electorates, but also states,
as he moved from West Sydney which was staunchly Labor to Bendigo (Victoria) which
was marginally so.[172] He denied there would be another referendum on conscription ‘unless Australia
and the Empire were threatened with disaster’.[173]

Hughes’ Nationalists won the election handsomely gaining 53
lower house seats to Labor’s 22. They also won all 18 Senate seats up for
election, which brought their total to 24 seats compared to Labor’s 12.

The election also saw the end of King O’Malley’s (ALP,
Darwin, Tas.) parliamentary career as he was defeated, and those of two
German-born MPs, George Dankel (Nationalist, Boothby, SA) and Jacob Stumm
(Liberal, Lilley, Qld) who retired. Three female candidates again failed to win
election, the same outcome for the female candidates at the two previous
elections.[174]

Parliament opened on 14 June 1917 in order to elect a new
Speaker (William Johnson) and pass two supply bills. It was then prorogued
until 11 July and the swearing in of 18 new senators. However, both houses met
unofficially on 15 June to discuss recruitment for the war.

Hughes had sought to dispense with the Governor-General’s
opening speech outlining his Government’s program because he was not fully
ready. However, this was resisted by the Governor-General and the program was
presented. A committee composed of members from both sides of politics would
aid the Director-General of Recruiting to obtain the 7,000 volunteers a month
who were needed to maintain Australia’s five infantry divisions in the war at
full strength. The income tax rate would be increased and there would be a tax
on war time profits. Industrial action that would adversely affect the war
effort would be prevented through amendments to the Commonwealth
Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904. The Government’s unpreparedness was
exposed when the Opposition did not engage in the Address-in-Reply debate and
Hughes was forced to adjourn the House for a week to work on the details of its
measures.[175]

Meanwhile, the war was taking its toll on the industrial
front with a general strike over August and September involving workers from
the tramways, railways, waterfront and mines, as well as civil demonstrations,
such as Melbourne’s food riots where crowds assembled on a daily basis to
denounce profiteering while the people starved.[176] Dissatisfaction
was expressed in an economic climate of rising prices, wage differences, war
profits and high interest rates on war loans. Hughes saw the disturbance in
political terms blaming it on the infiltration of the International Workers of
the World (IWW)—an international revolutionary movement which opposed the war—and
the Irish into Labor organisations and their unwillingness to accept their
electoral defeat. Although the IWW, known as the ‘Wobblies’, did not pose a
serious political threat in Australia, Hughes and other pro-conscriptionists
had come to view their activities as subversive. In 1916, for example, twelve
IWW leaders in NSW were arrested and tried for forgery, treason, felony,
conspiracy and arson following a series of suspicious fires in Sydney. They
were all found guilty and received prison sentences, but Hughes sought to
destroy the movement entirely.[177] In December 1916, he introduced the Unlawful Associations Bill, declaring to
Parliament that the IWW had: ‘... declared war upon society; upon the people of
this country ... this organization holds a dagger at the heart of society ... As it
seeks to destroy us, we must in self defence destroy it’.[178]

The resulting legislation criminalised the organisation, but
it did not completely destroy it. In July 1917, the Commonwealth Parliament
passed amendments to the Unlawful
Associations Act 1916to make it an offence to be a member of such an
organisation in Australia.[179] At the peak of the industrial unrest in 1917, Hughes wrote
to the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, expressing his views on the impact
that such international movements were having on the Australian home front: ‘The
Irish have captured the political machinery of the Labor organisations—assisted
by the Syndicalists and IWW people ... One of their archbishops—Mannix—is a Sinn
Feiner’.[180] These sentiments may have been an exaggeration, yet they were also
understandable. Just two days prior to penning his letter there had been a
large demonstration outside Parliament House led by Labor supporter and
suffragette, Adela Pankhurst, aiming to reduce the cost of living and free up
supplies of basic food items. This was contrary to a government regulation
prohibiting such demonstrations within a large area around the building, and
Pankhurst was subsequently arrested.[181]

Pressure was also building on a reluctant Hughes who had
made an election promise not to reconsider conscription. There had been heavy
losses on the Western Front as Germany had been able to focus its forces there.
This followed the October Revolution by the Bolsheviks in Russia which took it
out as a force against Germany. Apart from the heavy casualties (38,000 between
August and November), voluntary enlistment was well below the required 7,000
per month.[182] America had adopted conscription when it entered the war in
April. Canada had done so too in October by an Act of Parliament. There had
even been a suggestion by Sir William Irvine (Nationalist, Flinders, Vic.) that
the UK Parliament pass legislation for conscription in Australia. Hughes
decided that the seriousness of the war situation warranted him breaking his
promise. As Parliament was not sitting, he arranged by regulation under the War Precautions Act 1914 for another plebiscite to be held on 20 December 1917.[183]

This time the campaign engendered even more passion than the
first with violence and heckling a common feature of many rallies on both
sides. The question to be put to the people itself was criticised as being
dishonest because it made no reference to compulsion. It simply asked: ‘Are you
in favour of the proposal of the Commonwealth Government for reinforcing the
Australian Imperial Forces?’[184] Hughes gained the support of NSW Premier Holman by agreeing not to censor
campaign material and undertaking to resign if the vote went against him.

Hughes disregarded the first commitment as military censors
cut press reports about ‘No’ campaign speeches, especially in Queensland where
the anti-conscription campaign was led by Labor Premier Tom Ryan. Reports of
one speech were cut so severely that he repeated it in Parliament so that it
could be published in Hansard. However, a determined Hughes went to Brisbane
and had 3,300 copies of the relevant Hansard seized.[185]

Hansard’s official record of debates in the Commonwealth
Parliament during the war, although subject to oversight by military censors,
was largely untouched. As is the case today, alterations were usually made by
the speakers themselves or the Hansard editors. This is not to say that there
were no issues of censorship.[186] On 2 October 1918, the House passed the following motion:

That, during the progress of the present
war, Mr. Speaker be, and is hereby authorized, at his discretion, to direct the
omission from Hansard of any remarks made in the House of
Representatives in the course of debate, or in any other proceedings in the
House of Representatives, to which his attention may be directed by the Law
Officers of the Crown as being calculated to prejudice His Majesty’s relations
with a foreign Power, or the successful prosecution of the war, or to imperil
the safety of the Commonwealth.[187]

The plebiscite resulted in an even more emphatic ‘No’ than
the first one with the overall margin of 166,588 votes (7.58%), more than twice
that in 1916. Furthermore, only two of the smaller states (Tasmania and Western
Australia) voted ‘yes’. Of the members of the AIF who cast formal votes, 103,789
(52.5%) voted in favour of conscription and 93,910 (47.5%) voted against.[188] Only South Australian voters increased their vote in favour of conscription
compared to the year before.

Table 5: Results (votes and percentage) of the 1917
Military Service plebiscite

State/Territory

For

Against

New South Wales

341,256

41.16%

487,774

58.84%

Victoria

329,772

49.79%

332,490

50.21%

Queensland

132,771

44.02%

168,875

55.98%

South Australia

86,663

44.90%

106,364

55.10%

Western Australia

84,116

64.39%

46,522

35.61%

Tasmania

38,881

50.24%

38,502

49.76%

Federal Territories

1,700

58.22%

1,220

41.78%

Total

1,015,159

46.21%

1,181,747

53.79%

Source: Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia
2014[189]

Hughes tendered his resignation on 8 January 1918, but after
consulting a number of people, including Opposition Leader Frank Tudor, Joseph
Cook and Sir John Forrest, Governor-General Munro Ferguson swore in Hughes and
his previous ministry on 10 January.[190]

The Nationalist Party prevented Hughes from dropping Forrest
and Patrick Glynn (NAT, Angas, SA) from his ministry. However, he arranged for
Forrest to receive a peerage which entitled him to a seat in the House of Lords.
Not to be outdone, Forrest initially threatened to sit in the Lords, the House
of Representatives and in Cabinet, but ill health saw him resign from
Parliament at the end of March. He died on the way to England early in
September.[191]

Tudor moved a want of confidence motion against Hughes on 11
January:

That the House protests against: (a) the
repudiation of the pledges of the Prime Minister and other Ministers; (b) the
political persecution of public men and other citizens and the press under the
War Precautions Regulations during the recent Referendum campaign; (c) the
deprivation of statutory electoral rights of Australian-born citizens by
regulation behind the back of Parliament; (d) the general administration of
public affairs.[192]

Hughes survived the vote and set off in April for Britain
and Europe forgetting to inform the Governor-General that he had appointed
William Watt (Nationalist, Balaclava, Vic.) as acting Prime Minister in his
absence. Hughes was away from Australia for 17 months and was not in Parliament
to celebrate the end of the war on 11 November 1918.[193]

Parliament’s legislative output during the war years was of
necessity war-related, including passage of Supply Bills, War Precautions Bills
and War Loan Bills. However, there were some Acts passed which had a more
enduring impact on Australia than those which were specifically war-related.
The Commonwealth entered the income tax area with the passing of the Income Tax Assessment
Act and the Income
Tax Act of 1915.[194] An organisation to manage the transcontinental railway was set up under the Commonwealth Railways
Act 1917.[195] The Commonwealth
Electoral Act 1918 was a major consolidation of prior legislation and
introduced preferential voting for the House of Representatives. It also
restored postal voting.[196]

Table 6 shows that the House of Representatives sat for an
average of 91.5 days from 1901 to 1913, compared to an average of 60.6 days
during the war years. Whilst no explanation has been found in the parliamentary
record as to why there were fewer sitting days during the war, possible reasons
include the fact that there were two elections (1914 and 1917) and two
plebiscites (1916 and 1917), and that Prime Minister Billy Hughes was away from
the country for extended periods during 1916 and 1917. Some MPs visited England
and Europe as civilians during the war. This included a group of six who attended
the Empire Parliamentary Congress in London in 1916.

Members needed to ask the House for leave as section 38 of
the Constitution stipulates: ‘The place of a member shall become vacant if for
two consecutive months of any session of the Parliament he, without the permission
of the House, fails to attend the House.’ Such leave was readily granted,
especially for the nine MPs who went to war concurrent with their parliamentary
terms (see Appendix 2, Table A), but also to others. On one occasion, Frank
Anstey (ALP, Bourke, Vic.) was granted leave from the House for the remainder
of the session to attend to ‘urgent private business’ and he departed for
Europe in March 1918 ‘hurriedly and somewhat mysteriously’.[197]

Despite reduced sitting days and absences, the Parliament managed
to pass an average of 43.4 Acts during those years, compared to an average of
25.2 Acts per year in the first 13 years of the Commonwealth Parliament.

Table 6: Number of Acts passed and sitting days in each
year, 1901 to 1918

By the end of the war 270 men had served in the Commonwealth
Parliament at some point since its inception, including 90 senators, 186
members and six who served in both houses. Their broad socio-economic profile
is outlined and discussed in Appendix 1.

Of these 270, 23 served in WW1, 16 of whom were MPs at some
stage during the war years. Their names and those of other MPs who served in
WW1 and the Colonial wars can be found in Appendix 2, Table B.

News of the end of the war reached Australia on the evening
of Monday 11 November 1918. People poured onto the streets in celebration. The following
afternoon the Senate, but not the House of Representatives, met to pass a
motion to present an address to His Majesty the King. The address expressed ‘unswerving
loyalty and devotion’ to the King, thanks to God, congratulations to the
statesmen of the Allied powers, and gratitude to British and Allied forces for ‘their
stupendous efforts and patriotic sacrifices extending over four years of
unparalleled carnage’:[198]

Especially do we glory in the fact that the
soldiers and sailors of Australia have, by their dauntless heroism and
endurance, conspicuously assisted in re-establishing freedom and justice’. Then
homage was paid to those who had died and then hope was expressed ‘that the
nations of the world may ere long enter into the enjoyment of an honorable and
lasting peace.’[199]

At the passing of the motion, the senators
sang the National Anthem (God Save the King) and rendered three cheers. Cheers
were also given for Field-Marshall Foch, for ‘Our Volunteer Army’ and for ‘The
conscript armies of our Allies’.[200]

The Senate had agreed to withhold
presenting the address to the Governor-General until the House had also met and
agreed to present their own address. They did this on Wednesday 13 November in
a similar vein, preceded by a photograph of all members but without the
presence of Hughes,[201] Cook, Anstey and five serving MPs.[202]

Australia as a nation was as old as many of
its citizens who went to war, but Hughes’ ‘sturdy youth’ of 1911 had grown up
and shown itself to be a ‘young man’ ready, able and determined to take its
place in the world. The last item of business before both addresses were
presented to the Governor-General, was a notice of motion put by Acting Prime
Minister William Watt who proposed:

That the House of Representatives of the
Commonwealth of Australia declares that it is essential to the future safety
and welfare of Australia that the captured German possessions in the Pacific,
which are now occupied by the Australian and New Zealand troops, should not in
any circumstances be restored to Germany, and that in the consideration and
determination of proposals affecting the destination of those islands,
Australia should be consulted.

Britain’s dominions had provided about a third of its
fighting force. By the war’s end, from a population of fewer than five million,
416,809 Australians had enlisted (about 8.4%). Of these 60,000 (14.4%) were
killed and 156,000 (37.4%) were wounded or became prisoners of war.[204] Whilst there is little dispute that the war imposed enormous costs on Australia,
historians disagree about how far it yielded benefits to the young nation.
Gavin Souter, for example, has remarked:

It was no exaggeration to say that the
sturdy youth now taking up arms would thrive on war. Young Australian lives
might be cruelly cut short on the other side of the world; but during the next
four years the Commonwealth itself would flourish, its powers enhanced as a
result of the national emergency.[205]

On the other hand, Joan Beaumont has stated that:

Try
as I might as I wrote Broken nation: Australians and the Great War, I
could not find much positive to say about the impact of World War I on
Australian politics and society. Nor could I dispel the impression that the war
left Australians inward-looking, almost xenophobic, traumatised by grief and
deeply divided by the political rancour over conscription and the inequality of
sacrifice.[206]

The period between 1901 and 1914 marked a significant period
of evolution in the history of Australia’s federal legislature as the
Commonwealth Parliament made its mark on matters ranging from immigration,
trade and industrial relations to foreign affairs and defence. In the same
period, Australian federal politics evolved from volatility and shifting
alliances into a two-party system characterised by Labor and non-Labor forces
that continue to define Australian politics to this day.

Australia entered World War 1 in the midst of a federal
election campaign, and local political issues continued to dominate
parliamentary debates throughout the war. The issue of military conscription
was particularly contentious, splitting the Labor Party and emerging as one of
the most divisive issues in Australian society. The war also took its toll on
the industrial front, with a general strike in 1917 amid public concerns about
rising prices, wage differences, war profits and high interest rates on war
loans.

By the end of the war Australia had been a federated nation
for 18 years. During this time there had been seven elections, seven
parliaments, 11 prime ministerships occupied by seven different men, six
parties, 11 referendum questions put on four different dates resulting in two
changes to the Constitution, and two plebiscites which rejected military
conscription. Parliament passed 545 acts by the end of 1918 and the House of
Representatives had sat for 1,492 days. According to Souter, ‘Parliament, like
those of its electors in khaki, did what was required of it.’[207]

While the war had helped forge Australia as a nation, it had
also thrust it onto the world stage with new responsibilities. As Senator
Edward Millen (LIB, NSW) put it:

... this war, amongst other things, has made
Australia a nation in a sense that it was not before. It has given us a new
conception of national life; it has brought us more closely into touch with the
great international movements of the world, and, to that extent, it has thrown
an added responsibility upon the shoulders of our people.[208]

Senator Albert Gardiner (ALP, NSW) expressed a hope for the
future:

... that we shall realize our duty of binding
up our nation’s wounds, and of lending a helping hand to the dependants of
those who have fallen for us. I trust also that, like good sportsmen, the fight
having been fought with all bitterness and intensity, we shall forget the past
when peace is signed and hands are clasped in a friendship that I fervently
hope will last for all time.[209]

By the end of the war 270 men had served in the Commonwealth
Parliament, including 90 senators, 186 members and six who served in both
houses. The following provides an indication of the characteristics of MPs who
were in Parliament during the first two decades of Federation.

Each Parliament during the 1901 to 1918 period was comprised
of 75 Members and 36 Senators, all of whom were men. Even though women had been
granted the vote in 1902, and four had stood for the 1903 Commonwealth
election, it would not be until well into the Second World War that any entered
Parliament (in 1943). [210] Nevertheless, women voters were able to influence the political landscape,
particularly given that there were many more women living in urban than rural
areas and a redistribution of electorates before the 1906 election had increased
the number of city seats.[211]

Historian Joan Rydon, in a study of the Commonwealth
Parliament from 1901 to 1980, noted that ‘the majority of members entered the
Commonwealth Parliament in their thirties or forties’.[212] Across the many Parliaments, she found that the average age for an MP was
between 47 and 52. The average age in 1901 was 48.[213] The average age of those elected between 1901 and 1909 was 46.9 years when they
were first elected compared to 45.3 years between 1910 and 1916.[214] The average age of an MP in the 43rd Parliament over 100 years later was 51.4
years.[215]

The average age of the nine MPs who served in the forces simultaneously
with their time in Parliament was 43 years. All retained their seats at
the 1917 except for Alfred Ozanne (ALP, Corio, Vic.) who lost his seat in
controversial circumstances to John Lister (NAT, Corio, Vic.).[216] James O’Loghlin (ALP, Senator for SA) continued as a senator throughout
the period as he was not up for re-election.

At Federation, almost half of MPs (48.65%) were born
overseas, most in the United Kingdom. In the first decade, overseas-born MPs
made up 43.8% of the Parliament. This proportion had dropped to 34.8% in the
period before and during the war and continued to drop thereafter. See Table 8.

Just after the 1914 election, the Parliament was composed of
between 30–40 per cent of MPs who had been born overseas. Almost all of these
were from the United Kingdom. Some were from Canada and New Zealand, and one was
from Chile.

In 1901, 40.5% of MPs had been educated overseas and 2.7%
had had no schooling at all.[217] Of those who were educated within Australia, the proportion of newly-elected
MPs from state schools reached its height just before and during the war
(1910–16). This was during the time when Labor was growing, but before the big
increase in Labor Catholic members.[218] The make-up of
MPs from state and Catholic schools was less and those from private schools was
more than their representation in the population as a whole.[219]

It appears that just before and during the war,
newly-elected MPs were less educated than those in 1901. The proportion of
newly-elected MPs with tertiary qualifications during 1910–16 was half that in
1901.[221]

In line with the higher proportion of tertiary educated MPs
in the 1901–09 period compared to the 1910–16 period, is the higher proportion
of MPs who had professional qualifications, particularly in law (43.8% in
1901–09 compared to 14.5% in 1910–16). As the Labor Party grew, so too did the
proportion of MPs who had been workers or union officials (21.9% in the 1901–09
period compared to 46.3% in the 1910–16 period).[222]

Despite the acknowledged difficulties in obtaining and
classifying data on MPs’ religious orientation, Rydon discovered that, in the
first decade of the Commonwealth Parliament, about 10% of MPs purported to be
Roman Catholic and about 80% were Protestant. During the years just before the
war and during it (1910–16), Roman Catholics accounted for about 20% of MPs and
Protestants about 74% of MPs. [223]

During the war, the proportion of MPs who were Catholic was
less than in the population as a whole.[224] In fact,
membership of the Parliament has never reflected the ratios of religious
adherence in the population as a whole.[225] Before the War, a high proportion of MPs belonged to Protestant or temperance
organisations.

According to section 48 of the Constitution, senators and
members were initially entitled to ‘receive an allowance of four hundred pounds
a year’. This was increased to £600 in 1907 and to £1,000 after the war in
1920.[226]

MPs were entitled to receive their parliamentary salary as
well as their military pay because although section 44(iv) disqualifies a
member holding ‘any office of profit under the Crown’, section 44 goes on to
stipulate that section 44(iv) ‘does not apply ... to the receipt of pay, half
pay, or a pension, by any person as an officer or member of the Queen’s navy or
army, or to the receipt of pay as an officer or member of the naval or military
forces of the Commonwealth by any person whose services are not wholly employed
by the Commonwealth’.

In 1901, 79% of federal MPs had also served in their state
parliaments. This is probably unsurprising because as Joan Rydon said: ‘It was
perhaps a necessary condition of successful federation that a good proportion
of the political leaders in all states should be keen to move to the federal
sphere.’[227]

In the period before and during the war (1910–16) this
figure dropped to 45%. About 30% of federal MPs at the time of Federation and
in the 1910–16 period had had local government experience. Twenty-two per cent
and 15% respectively had had both state and local government experience.[228] See table 13 for details.

Table 13: Percentage of federal MPs with state and local
government experience

A total of 125 men who became MPs at some time in their
lives also served in the Colonial wars, [229] the
First World War, or both. Their names are listed in the tables below together
with their electorate or state and their war service. The list includes those
who were engaged in, or were in transit to, active service and those who fought
for allied countries. Details of each man’s parliamentary career and war
service are presented in the Parliamentary Library’s publication, Commonwealth
members of parliament who have served in war and conflict: colonial wars and
World War I.[230]

The list does not include reservists or members of
the defence force without active service. Eight MPs (Eldred Eggins, John
Latham, John McEwen, Frederick Pratten, Thomas Sheehy, Percy Spender, Cornelius
Wallace and Keith Wilson) who enlisted but do not appear on the Australian War
Memorial’s Embarkation Roll database are also not included. However, their
details can be located in Appendix 1 of the above paper.

[24]. J
McCay, ‘Question: Supply’, House of Representatives, Debates,
2 November 1904, p. 6388, accessed 20 August 2014. The Council for Defence and the
Military Board became operational on 12 January 1905, both under the leadership
of the Minister for Defence.

[26]. Imperial
Conferences (known as Colonial Conferences until 1907) were held in 1902, 1907
and 1911 in the period before the outbreak of World War I. Attended by the
leaders of the British Dominions and the United Kingdom, their aim was to
coordinate policy on common interests, most notably on defence and trade
policies.

[38]. The
Australia Station was established by the Royal Navy in 1859 as Britain’s
command based on Australian waters. It included the islands of the South
Pacific. See AWM, ‘Australia
Station’, AWM website, accessed 22 October 2014.

[48]. In
the case of Antarctica, Douglas Mawson, who had accompanied Ernest Shackleton
on his 1907 ̶ 09 expedition to the geographic South Pole, had formed the
view that Australia should ‘take the lead in asserting control’ of the sector
of Antarctica to the south of Australia. Mawson’s 1911–14 Australasian
Antarctic Expedition was designed to achieve that control, and was given
support—in part financial—by Prime Minister Andrew Fisher. See M Kawaja and T
Griffiths, ‘“Our great frozen neighbour”: Australia and Antarctica before the
Treaty, 1880 ̶ 1945’, in M Haward and T Griffiths, eds, Australia
and the Antarctic Treaty system: 50 years of influence, UNSW Press, Sydney,
2011, pp. 16, 18–19.

[52]. Responsible
government is the principle whereby the government is responsible to (requires
the support of) the parliament which in turn is responsible or accountable to
the voters. PJ Boyce, RK Forward, MNB Cribb, KW Wiltshire and DE Drinkwater, Dictionary
of Australian politics, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1980, p. 229.

[58]. The Commonwealth Franchise
Act 1902 granted the right to vote to all British
subjects over the age of 21 years who had been living in Australia for at least
six months. Australian women were also allowed to stand for election to federal
Parliament. However, the Act disqualified indigenous people from Australia, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, with the
exception of Maoris, from voting, even though they were British subjects and
otherwise entitled to a vote. The only exceptions were those who were entitled
under section 41 of the Australian Constitution, who had gained a right
to vote at a state level. Others disqualified where those of ‘unsound mind’ and
those subject to a crime which carried a penalty of over one year in prison.
See Commonwealth
of Australia Constitution Act, Section 41, ComLaw,
accessed 10 April 2015.

[59]. The
‘White Australia’ policy was the unofficial name of an immigration policy aimed
at restricting the entry of non-Europeans into Australia. Boyce et al, op.
cit., p. 285.

[67]. A
Deakin, ‘Conciliation and arbitration Bill’, House of Representatives, Debates, 19 April 1904, p. 1047, accessed 22 October 2014. His view was
validated in 1906 when the High Court ruled that a state trade union
representing state employees could not be registered under the Commonwealth
Conciliation and Arbitration Act. See Federated Amalgamated
Government Railway and Tramway Service Association v New South Wales Railway
Traffic Employees’ Association (1906) 4 CLR 488.

[145]. Souter, Acts of Parliament, op. cit., p. 146. The House of Representatives has
only ever sat once for fewer days in a year and that was in 1937, an election
year, when it sat for 29 days (House of Representatives Chamber Research
Office).

[160]. Unlike
Australia, Britain did not have an election during the war. I White
and M Durkin, General election dates 1832–2005,
Standard note, 04512, House of Commons Library, 15 November 2007, accessed 17
April 2015.

[176]. J
Smart, ‘Feminists, food and the fair price: the cost of living demonstrations
in Melbourne, August-September 1917’, in J Damousi and M Lake, eds, Gender
and war: Australians at war in the twentieth century, Carlton University
Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 274.

[180]. Souter, Acts of Parliament, op. cit., p. 155. Syndicalism was a movement that
advocated direct action by the working class to abolish the capitalist order
and replace it with workers organised into production units. See:
‘Syndicalism’, Encyclopaedia
Britannica, (online), accessed 22
January 2015.

[181]. Souter, Acts of Parliament, op. cit., p. 156. Pankhurst was co-founder of both
the Communist Party of Australia and the Australia First Movement.

[196]. Commonwealth Electoral
Act 1918, ComLaw,
accessed 9 April 2015. The story behind the passage of this Act, which is well
told in Souter, Acts of Parliament, op. cit., pp. 164–6, involved the
Government doing a deal with the Victorian Farmers’ Union to introduce
preferential voting while Hughes, who was suspicious of the system, was
overseas; the introduction of the ‘guillotine’ to expedite the Bill in the House
of Representatives; and the longest-ever speech in Parliament by Senate
Opposition Leader, Senator Albert Gardiner, who spoke for 12 hours and 40
minutes in a stonewalling effort.

[197]. Australia,
House of Representatives, ‘Leave of absence to members’, Votes
and Proceedings, 44, 5 April 1918, p. 177, accessed 19 August 2014. It
was understood that this was to visit his elderly mother. However, there were
other reports that he was wanted by the Commonwealth police in relation to an
egg being thrown at and hitting Prime Minister Billy Hughes at Warwick railway
station in Queensland. See Souter, Acts of Parliament, op. cit., pp. 163–4;
Fitzhardinge, op. cit.

[201]. Hughes
returned to Australia on 23 August 1919 and to Parliament on 10 September. He
received much public adulation for his strong leadership in the world arena.
Souter, Acts of Parliament, op. cit., pp. 170–2. Hughes remained Prime
Minister until February 1923 and Frank Tudor led Labor in Opposition until January
1922.

[216]. A
week before polling day during the 1917 election campaign, Ozanne was falsely
accused of desertion in London the previous October (he was receiving medical
treatment). He was heavily criticised by the Geelong Advertiser but was only
able to publicly rebut the accusation the day before polling, by which time it
was too late. Souter, Acts of Parliament, op. cit., pp. 160–1.

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